I don't know how he'll do..Notre Dame did great one year in XC when their men got second and had that extremely impressive pack time.
However I don't see any Colorado athletes, past and present, commenting positively about this hire other than Joe Clrcker on the gram. There's no ripple of enthusiasm here.
So time will tell, but a lot of people tied to tge CU program will be watching, hoping it works out.
Perhaps the dual Head Coach experiment (Ross/Carlson) did not work?
You think they keep this model with the next person coming in?
Also, I don’t see the big deal with this Carlson guy, all the experienced coaches I know say he is an arrogant a hole. He told Tennessee he recruits if they visited a mid major in Tennessee then they are no longer considered a recruit of UT. Talk about pissed off the college coaches out there.
Saw this guy speak once right before he got a job at Tennessee, talking about Notre Dame. He said something along the lines of ‘I develop talent I don’t get top level kids in right away’ dude lives in his own world. Dylan Jacobs was a FL champion.
Very arrogant which probably makes him a great recruiter (salesman), probably helped him in interviews for CU. But he’s not a coach that cares about young adults, people that work for him, or development. His training is decent but it’s not rocket science when you run kids very hard and see who sticks. Terrible hire IMO, and now CU will follow the likes of some other SEC schools and the Coach Prime philosophy in recruiting top talent, throwing development out the window, and only focused on performance..
If you believe the NCAA should have a professional level philosophy and performance is all that matters Sean will likely do great. If you believe NCAA should follow their mission and “Provide a world-class athletics and academic experience for student-athletes that fosters lifelong well-being.” Well Sean could give two sh*ts about well-being, and we’ve seen how many coaches that don’t care about well-being and how their practices end up. The transfer portal from Tennessee is the best indicator of all of this.
Sad day for CU. Great day for Sean.
Pretty much a spot on assessment.
Sean isn't a bad guy, he's actually a pretty cool dude. He is a salesman, but hey when you recruit you have to sell yourself, the program and the university. Once you have success at a national level, you can sell your accomplishments and what you can offer.
Does he have inflated rosters, yes. Does he run them hard, yes. If you make it through uninjured you will be pretty solid and every now and then you luck up and get a Yared, who was a complete diamond in the rough and a Dylan who was a star coming out of HS in Illinois.
Living in Boulder/suburban Denver / Denver is much better than Knoxville.
I'm not condoning his rumored treatment of kids at UT or the high number of transfers, but to be fair - using freshman results is not how you define athlete development. Honestly, his short time at Tennessee can't even be the best example for development. To fairly examine his coaching chops for development, you would have to go back and evaluate his athletes that were at ND for 3 years or more.
Hopefully, his brief time at UT and how things unfolded were a wake up call for him and he figures out that to be successful in the long term, you have to take a different approach to dealing with and communication to athletes than it seems like he did the last 2 seasons. If so, he has proven to be a successful recruiter and CU Boulder is a great place for distance runners - so it could work.
Tennessee would be smart to go for Vanhoy. Similar training style as Carlson and he had incredible success at Mississippi as an assistant, knows how to recruit and be relevant in the SEC. Knoxville isn’t a top tier training location but it sure would be easier to recruit to than Oxford.
Similar training style? I don't think they're similar at all.
In any case, Vanhoy made $150K last year as director at Cal Poly. A directorship has more job security and he decides where the scholarship goes. Sure he could get a $100K pay bump at UT, but then he has no scholarship to work with and is constantly on the hot seat, especially once Ross inevitably gets fired for some kind of violation. Plus, he has to live in Knoxville instead of on the California coast.
I think Vanhoy is staying put.
I have no idea what Vanhoy and his wife are interested in doing but a potential reason for considering a move is program funding. With these new changes happening at the NCAA due to the House decision, due to the difference in the wealth of each of the ADs (Tennessee vs SLO) some might think it a prudent measure to move to the wealthier school.
(That said, they may love living in SLO so it might not even be a consideration for them.)
I don't know how he'll do..Notre Dame did great one year in XC when their men got second and had that extremely impressive pack time.
However I don't see any Colorado athletes, past and present, commenting positively about this hire other than Joe Clrcker on the gram. There's no ripple of enthusiasm here.
So time will tell, but a lot of people tied to tge CU program will be watching, hoping it works out.
They're butthurt that it's not an alumni hire or they've just moved on in life, either once Wetmore was out or well before that.
I don't know how he'll do..Notre Dame did great one year in XC when their men got second and had that extremely impressive pack time.
However I don't see any Colorado athletes, past and present, commenting positively about this hire other than Joe Clrcker on the gram. There's no ripple of enthusiasm here.
So time will tell, but a lot of people tied to tge CU program will be watching, hoping it works out.
They're butthurt that it's not an alumni hire or they've just moved on in life, either once Wetmore was out or well before that.
Well sure! Dontcha think that to sacrifice CU alumni support seems like starting off on the wrong foot? Duh.
NCAA coaching is about one thing. Getting kids to run for your program (includes keeping them on the team once they are there).
We need to quit treating the sport like we do in high school where it is a no cut feel good place for the weird kids. This is college it is going to be hard. So a lot of kids transferred out of Tennessee, have you looked at the portal? Everyone transfers now.
I was listening to Big10 football media days. A coach was saying how they need kids to get into the program, eat 9,000 calories a day and lift nonstop until they’ve gained 30-40 lbs. if they don’t we put ‘em in the portal and send them to the G5.
With the mass exodus of student athletes and a significant portion of the coaching staff from UT, it's odd that CU would settle on a head coach even less personable than the outgoing coach. Though CU's Distance Program may have been in a downward trajectory, it nevertheless still has a good core of student athletes eager to turn things around. They just need the right leadership. Local Niwot HS running program has an excellent coaching staff with a proven track record and there is nothing but positive feedback regarding the program there. Why not hire locally? They have the pedigree, familiarity with Boulder's climate and training training routes and I'm sure the willingness to take the next step in their careers and perform their magic with a DI College program. Everyone who knows them, loves them. Do the right thing. Go Kelly!
This post was edited 4 minutes after it was posted.
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fixed grammar
Well let's look at the facts then. At Carlson's peak in 2020 NCAA XC he had 6 All Americans and had the lowest scoring team ever not to win NCAAs and his top runner wasn't Yared or Dylan (Yared was actually the 5th man). He also had his 8th man who didn't even race NCAAs get 3rd and 5th at ACC indoors within the same month because of the COVID delay going sub 8 and sub 14. Is that sufficiently more than two runners or are we just going to cherry pick names because no one cares enough about the sport to know anything except the top 3 in the NCAA at any time
I think he's far more likely to succeed than fail at Colorado. It feels like he left Notre Dame for Tennessee because the money was too good, but then regretted the move pretty quickly. It also felt like he was rushing the rebuild process by signing such an outrageously large class.
Time will tell, but you don't score 87 points at nationals and win multiple track titles by accident.
87 points at a march XC nationals where indoor nationals was 2 days before and many competitors doubled (ex: arkansas) or didnt show up at all (ex: oregon)
Oh, and for all the insiders that were calling this or that person had the job: what happened?
Speaking of garbage... weren't you the guy claiming that CU wouldn't fund their program so they would not be able to get any high profile coach... you think Carlson jumped ship from heavily funded Tennessee for an 'unfunded' Colorado program? Sure.
I don't know how he'll do..Notre Dame did great one year in XC when their men got second and had that extremely impressive pack time.
However I don't see any Colorado athletes, past and present, commenting positively about this hire other than Joe Clrcker on the gram. There's no ripple of enthusiasm here.
So time will tell, but a lot of people tied to tge CU program will be watching, hoping it works out.
87 points at a march XC nationals where indoor nationals was 2 days before and many competitors doubled (ex: arkansas) or didnt show up at all (ex: oregon)
what happened next year lol
arkansas and oregon were not better than that ND team.